Pharaohs and Kings: A Biblical Quest
By David M. Rohl
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Who came earlier, George Washington or Abraham Lincoln? Pretty easy, huh? How about William the Conqueror or Henry VIII? Got that one too? Good! How about this one: who came first, Ramesses II or Dudimose? Now, you're probably thinking that this last question is pretty silly (did you recognize the names as those of Egyptian pharaohs?) and not worth a hill of beans.
But for some people, this kind of question is very important, because the historicity of the Bible is based, for a large part, on verifying Jewish history with corresponding Egyptian history. This is partly because much of what the Egyptians left was engraved in stone; and they left a lot of stone monuments.
The nineteenth century scholars who investigated Egyptian finds were firmly rooted in biblical tradition. The names, titles and deeds of Ramesses II were everywhere -- on monuments, bigger and more imposing than anything belonging to his predecessors or successors, excluding the mighty pyramids of Giza.
The first chapter of the book of Exodus states that the Egyptians did set over them (the Israelites) taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. (Exodus 1:11)
The Victorian scholars concluded >from this that it was Ramesses II who enslaved the Israelites and forced them to build his new eastern-delta capital -- the biblical Raamses. Through this and other conclusions they made a chronology of the pharaohs that has stood unchallenged, until recently.
The problem with this chronology, dubbed the conventional chronology by Rohl, is that, when using this chronology, the archeological finds in Israel don't correspond chronologically to the passages in the Bible that relate to places and people. The Bible, therefore, doesn't correspond to history as scholars know it. The result has been that archeologists and many scholars have been rather dismissive of the Bible as history.
Rohl tells the reader that the conventional Egyptian chronology rests on 4 pillars:
1. The Sacking of Thebes by the Assyrians in 664 BC
2. The identification of Pharaoh Shoshenk I with the biblical Shishak, king of Egypt
3. The beginning of the Egyptian New Kingdom is set at 1550 BC
4. Ramesses II began to rule Egypt in 1279 BC
Rohl accepts only the first of these four assumptions. The others he dismisses with the use of recent archeological research and well-reasoned assumptions. And the result is a New Chronology for the Egyptian dynasties, a chronology that supports the biblical dates for the archeological finds in Israel.
Rohl does this using mind-numbing details. First of all there is the vast number of pharaohs and their names. After all, pharaohs ruled Egypt for some 3000 years. Then there's the immensity of evidence that Rohl examines. He is currently writing his doctoral thesis, and one suspects that this book is very close to being his thesis (though there's a multitude of illustrations). You really have to be an avid fan of history to slog through all the names, dates, details and theories that he presents. The reader who is not an Egyptologist will get lost in the details.
But it's all very convincing; and the outcome is that the archeological finds in Jericho, Megiddo, Jerusalem, and, especially, in that part of northeastern Egypt that the Bible refers to as the Land of Goshen, all correspond to their references in the Bible and can be dated to their time in the Bible. The stories of Moses and Joseph are real (We even see a digital reconstrution of the villa that Joseph lived and was buried in). The Bible is again an historical document.
Rohl has also made a TV documentary called A Test of Time on the same subject. This might be more accessable to the general public and might be a good addition to the Heritage library.
Biographical information about the author (from the book jacket): David Rohl first visited Egypt as a nine-year-old, journeying up the River Nile in King Farouk's paddle steamer, the Kased Kheir, from Cairo to the Temples of Abu Simbel in Nubia. His love affair with Egypt and the Ancient World, begun in childhood, has endured throughout his adult life.
David took his degree in Egyptology and Ancient History at University College, London, between 1987 and 1990, where he is currently completing a doctoral thesis. He has published numerous papers in academic journals and was the Editor of the Journal of Ancient Chronology Forum from 1986 to 1992. As an archeologist, he has excavated at ancient Kadesh-on-the-Orontes in Syria with the expedition of the Institute of Archaeology, London. He is currently Chairman of the Institute for the Study of Interdisciplinary Sciences.
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